


Keep Me Hanging On

by how_about_no



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Fix-It, M/M, POV Alternating, Post-Endgame, aka steve does NOT go to the past like a dickhead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-30
Updated: 2019-05-30
Packaged: 2020-03-29 21:18:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19028125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/how_about_no/pseuds/how_about_no
Summary: Then, just as he smashed the hammer down on one of Thanos’ men, a gunshot whistled by so close to his ear he ducked away. His head whipped around to see a large alien down on the ground with a hole in the middle of its forehead. He looked up to see light casting a figure into a shadow.‘Not the end of the line yet, pal.’ The figure said. Steve’s breathe escaped him. It was so familiar, this feeling. Seeing Bucky again after mourning him.‘Bucky?’ Steve sounded breathless even to his own ears.*The battlefield reunion we never saw, and what should've happened after.





	1. 'It's not the end of the line yet.'

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Magnetised- Tom odell
> 
> so yeah!! this is a thing!! that I needed to do!!
> 
> i'm still mad about steve travelling back in time so to stem my anger i have decided to write this aka what SHOULD have happened
> 
> also including a cute epilogue bc i hate ambiguous endings
> 
> also i'm sorry if the characterisation is a bit off i haven't written any cap stuff in a while...

Determination had run through Steve’s veins for as long as he could remember. All through his life, there was no other option than to get back up and keep fighting. Even pre-serum. Steve knew when a fight needed fighting and he did it with everything he had. Now, in the heat of battle, Steve’s determination was amplified with exhilaration.

Hearing Sam’s voice in his comms fuelled him with something he couldn’t describe.

Getting back up, seeing Thanos’ army triple and quadruple in numbers, was Steve staring death in the face. In that moment he knew he’d go down. He’d go down fighting, gasping for breath with blood collecting in his throat, but he’d go down. He had a broken shield. He had diminished numbers. Losing was the only option.

Then Sam’s voice. Then the portals opened. Then everyone he loved and cared about, fought with and for, poured out with battle cries to match the scream inside him.

Then, he knew. He knew if he went down there would be someone to fight in his place. He was suddenly filled with _hope._

Steve didn’t have time to think, breathe, or speak before he was calling his army into battle and running for his life.

Now he was fighting. He was going through soldiers like a warm knife through butter. He wielded Mjolnir. He shouted with triumph. He could feel it in his damn _bones._

There we people fighting around him. He couldn’t look to see the only face that mattered. Everything was happening too fast. The exhilaration, the determination, the _fire_ singing inside him didn’t give him chance to care about anything else but the fight for earth.

Then, just as he smashed the hammer down on one of Thanos’ men, a gunshot whistled by so close to his ear he ducked away. His head whipped around to see a large alien down on the ground with a hole in the middle of its forehead. He looked up to see light casting a figure into a shadow.

‘Not the end of the line yet, pal.’ The figure said. Steve’s breathe escaped him. It was so familiar, this feeling. Seeing Bucky again after mourning him.

‘Bucky?’ Steve sounded breathless even to his own ears. Bucky stepped down from the ledge and into the crater Steve had been fighting in. He held his hand out to help him up, and Steve gripped it and tried to channel everything he had been feeling for the last five years into the touch.

Noise surrounded them. It all became fuzzy and irrelevant.

‘Since when were you a hammer guy?’ Bucky’s smile was bright and warm. Despite the long hair, the metal arm, the leather binding his chest, this was all Bucky. No Winter Soldier in sight.

‘Don’t you think it suits me?’ Steve held the hammer aloft and did his best impression of Thor’s smoulder. He wasn’t sure if Bucky had ever met the man, but he laughed anyway.

‘You look good.’ He said. It wasn’t about the hammer, Steve could tell, it was about the five years etched onto Steve’s face, into his posture. Steve looked over his best friend. He looked exactly the same. Figures, it had only been a moment for him.

‘You too.’ It came out softer than he meant it to.

Another bullet flew by his ear, but this time Steve didn’t flinch, he saw the shooter raise his weapon. The set line of Bucky’s mouth told him the conversation was over. The warmth blooming in his eyes when he looked away from his target and back to Steve told him it was something they’d continue later. Hugging on a battlefield just makes two targets into one.

He nodded at Bucky, a silent hello and farewell that they haven’t said yet.

Bucky swallowed and nodded back.

That’s the last Steve saw of him until it was all over.

*

Bucky had been through a lot of goodbyes. The most important ones were him leaving. The first time on the train, going back into cryo, and getting ashed. Bucky stared at his feet as Bruce counted down. He knew Steve wasn’t coming back.

They’d had a conversation the night before. An enlightening one. Steve talked about wanting to retire, be done with all of the _Captain America_ stuff. He told Bucky about seeing Peggy. He said he realised things about his old life, things he should’ve known all along.

He had stared at Bucky as if he should understand. Bucky did. He understood that Steve seeing Peggy, seeing everything he could’ve had, made him realise that it was what he really wanted. They had a time machine. He _could_ have it.

Bucky couldn’t control his reaction. He fell into a monosyllabic mess. At least, he was a mess in his head. He knew he’d appear stoic and unfeeling to anyone else’s eyes. Falling into his Winter Soldier persona was a back up plan. He knew how to be unfeeling if he needed it. Last night was one of those times.

They’d lost each other so many times and now they were losing each other again. Only this time, Bucky was watching Steve go, instead of the other way around. He guessed it was the universe’s way of getting even.

He tried to bring back the sensation of Steve’s arms around him. It was getting fainter with each second that passed without Steve back on the platform.

Bruce finished the countdown.

Nothing happened.

Bucky sighed.

‘What’s going on?’ Sam had his arms crossed, face the perfect picture of confusion. He had no idea. He didn’t know Steve like Bucky did, ‘Where is he, Bruce?’

‘I don’t know.’ Bruce was flicking switched and turning dials rapidly, ‘He should be back.’

Bucky simply stared at the empty platform. His feet moved before he told them to. He turned around and started walking back up to the makeshift home they had near Tony’s place. It would feel empty without Steve. Bucky was already forming plans to leave without anyone noticing. It would be fairly easy. Now everyone will be mourning the loss of three heroes.

There was a whoosh, and Bucky paused.

‘Cap!’ Sam let out a breathless laugh, ‘I thought you were gone for a second there.’

‘This time travel thing is a lot harder than it seems.’ Steve laughed too. Bucky was still paused halfway up the hill, ‘Buck?’

Bucky blinked rapidly. He tried to put up the mask, but it wasn’t working. If he stayed turned long enough for it to form, then he wouldn’t see Steve and goddammit he _needed_ to see him.

He turned.

‘Shit.’ Bucky sat down heavily. There was a sharp stick under him but he couldn’t bring himself to care. Steve marched towards him.

‘Walking away before I can get my grand re-entrance?’ Steve offered him a hand up. Bucky just stared at it. He couldn’t believe Steve was here. What happened to Peggy? To the life he said he realised he wanted. Steve dropped his hand, ‘Bucky?’

Bucky shook his head. He stared at his feet. Emotions had become so much more overwhelming since relearning them, especially when it came to Steve. He needed a minute.

‘Sam?’ Steve said, but Bucky could still feel his eyes on him, ‘There’s something we need to talk about.’

*

Steve handed the shield to Sam. The man in question looked at it in awe.

‘Turns out Howard made spares.’ Steve shrugged, trying not to look back at where Bucky had disappeared into the house, ‘I took one when I returned the tesseract. No one will know it was gone. It’s not like they’re using them.’

‘Cap, I-’

‘It’s Steve now-’ Steve tilted his head with a smile- ‘Cap.’

‘Shit.’ Sam laughed, shaking his head. He held the shield over his chest. It suited him, ‘What about you?’

‘I’m going to try that life thing that Tony was talking about.’ He unconsciously looked at the house. Sam followed his gaze.

‘Should’ve seen his face, Ca- Steve.’ Sam said, ‘He thought you weren’t coming back.’

‘I fought too long, and too hard to get him back just to leave again.’ Indignation slipped into Steve’s tone, but Sam didn’t react to it other than a nod.

‘I read all your comics when I was a kid.’ Sam started, a wistful look in his eyes, ‘About people you’d rescued with the Howling Commandos, with Bucky, and I always thought they were missing something. I didn’t know what it was. I saw you and your men, you being a leader, a hero. But there was always this thing in the back of my head telling me something wasn’t right. You and Bucky went to the ends of the earth for each other, but- but I finally figured out what they missed.’ Steve’s heart swelled at the thought of young Sam reading about him, and he knew Bucky’s would too. He always loved being a comic book character.

‘It’s that.’ Sam pointed at Steve, ‘That face. When you found him, when you saw his file, in the warehouse with the damn newspaper in your shoes story. The comics never showed that.’

‘Sam.’ Steve said so softly he could barely hear it.

‘It’s the same face I saw when you missed the countdown.’ Sam’s smile was fond, hopeful, and a bit teasing. Steve ducked his head, ‘The comics got so much about you right, but the only way they could explain why you and Bucky did so much for each other was that you were like brothers.’

‘Brothers.’ Steve scoffed. Sam shook his head with a laugh too.

‘Good luck, Steve.’ Sam looked toward the house.

Steve had thought he’d made himself clear to Bucky the night before, but clearly, he needed more than vague explanations. Steve needed to say it outright. Sam’s blessing was as good as any.

‘Thank you, Captain.’ Steve did a mock salute.

‘Shut the hell up, man.’ Sam waved him off.

Steve all but ran up the hill and to the door.

*

Bucky stared at the ceiling, lying on the bed he’d been assigned for the next few days. He clenched his metal fist and uncurled it again. The whirring had become an almost calming sound over time. It wasn’t so bad being part robot when the tech was made by anyone other than the people who tore him apart. After all, he’d always wanted to see the future. Now he was part future. At least, that was how he looked at it to help him sleep at night.

‘Hey.’ A soft voice came from the doorway. Bucky didn’t bother to see who it was, he knew that voice, even if at first it confused the hell out of him. It brought him out of seventy years of brainwashing, and now it encompassed him in a warm glow.

‘Hi.’

‘Mind if I-?’

‘Did I mind from ’36 through to ’44?’

Steve didn’t answer, but the bed dipped next to him and Steve lined himself up at Bucky’s side. He’d changed out of his dumb time travel suit. The T-shirt and sweatpants looked better on him.

‘So,’ Steve started awkwardly. Bucky gave him an odd look. He was fiddling with the ties on his trousers, ‘Sam is Captain America now.’

‘Oh, yeah?’ Bucky raised an eyebrow, ‘How does it feel being retired, old man?’

‘Good.’ Steve said, voice full of relief. He didn’t even comment on the ‘old’ joke. He was staring at the ceiling like it was playing a feature film length montage of all the possibilities his life now held.

‘Think I could retire too?’

‘I think you can do whatever you want to do.’ Steve finally turned his head and looked at Bucky. His eyes were fourteen kinds of sincere.

‘Would I have to give the new guy my metal arm?’ Bucky joked, and Steve breathed a laugh.

‘No new guy. No one could replace you.’

‘And they can you?’

Steve just shrugged.

Sometimes Bucky wondered what would’ve happened to them if they’d stayed out of the war. Would they have lived together forever? Would Steve have found a girl, would Bucky? He imagined them with separate families and living towns apart and it scared him. In some ways he was glad everything happened the way it did. It meant that they were here, just them, with Steve healthy and the future within reach.

‘What happened to Peggy?’ Bucky asked, and Steve seemed to understand all the other questions behind it. _Why didn’t you stay? Why did you come back?_

‘She had a life.’ Steve explained, ‘I’ve seen photos of her husband, heard stories from her herself. I went to her funeral. We had our chance.’ He shrugged again, ‘It wasn’t meant to be.’

‘Right.’

‘And,’ Steve continued, swallowing, ‘I’ve spent too long fighting for you to be by my side just to leave as soon as you’re here for good. You’re- you’re here for good right?’

‘If you’ll have me.’ Something like hope blossomed in Bucky’s chest, but he hadn’t felt it in such a long time that he had a hard time coping with it.

He searched Steve’s eyes. They were smiling. Then it spread to his mouth, and cheeks, and Steve was grinning at him with the same face Bucky fell in love with when they were teenagers.

‘I’ll have you.’ Steve said, and then Bucky was grinning too.


	2. The Perfect Partner

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> steve finally gets his dance
> 
> and i miss bucky's short hair...
> 
> (edited a little so if u read the original version maybe give it another go)

_One Month Later_

‘Come on, sit still.’

‘Fuck you, grandpa.’

‘Later.’ Steve patted his shoulder consolingly and Bucky grumbled. Another snip and a lock of hair fell in Bucky’s lap. Steve watched as Bucky lifted it up in his metal fingers.

‘God, why did I keep this for so long?’

‘No idea.’ Steve stuck his tongue between his teeth in concentration. It was never going to be just right, but Bucky still didn’t trust a stranger to go near him with scissors. That meant it fell into Steve’s hands to try give him something like the style he had before the war. It was going fairly well, Steve thought.

He met Bucky’s eyes in the mirror. Bucky was frowning, assessing. He moved his head.

‘I swear to God, Buck, if you move again, you’ll _wish_ you got a stranger to do your hair.’

‘Just wish you wouldn’t be so slow about it. We gotta be there in an hour remember.’

‘Plenty of time.’

‘Not at this pace.’

Another lock of hair fell. Bucky sniffed.

‘Are you crying?’

‘It was a sniff of derision, Rogers.’

‘Well,’ Steve set the scissors down and ran his fingers through Bucky’s new, shorter hair, ‘I’m done, so you can start sobbing.’

‘Shit.’ Bucky considered himself. He moved his head to different angles. He was suddenly so much like his old self. Steve remembered before the war, before everything, Bucky would spend ten minutes every morning carefully looking at his reflection. He made sure he hadn’t missed any spots while shaving, pushed water through his hair to try style it. Steve always thought he looked perfect before his eyes even hit the mirror.

Their apartment was a little different now.

Steve insisted it be back in Brooklyn, where they started, and when he told Bucky, the look on his face was all the agreement he needed.

It didn’t take long to find something since they were both considered saviours. It was a little awkward at first. Throughout the first week, the landlord paid a lot of visits. After seeing Bucky purposely sharpening his knives at the breakfast bar the third time, though, he stopped.

That was the thing about Bucky.

Before, he wasn’t much of a weapons guy. He stayed out of fights unless Steve started them. Now, he was hardened. There were times when Steve hardly recognised him.

He still loved him.

But these times, when looking at Bucky feels as settled and sure as the sun rising in the morning, Steve knew it was all worth it. He was sure there were times where Bucky didn’t recognise him either.

‘We still going?’ Bucky brushed the hair from his lap to the ground and turned to Steve. The bathroom wasn’t small, but he was still only a breath away.

‘Sam said it’s a good place.’

He’d got the text a few days ago. Sam had been pretty busy with his ‘Captain America’ duties, but he’d taken the time to send Steve a photo of a flier for a forty’s night at a bar downtown. Apparently, it did one every month.

It was meant to be just like the places people would go to party when Steve and Bucky were in their twenties. Steve doubted its authenticity but told Sam they’d give it a try. Now they were meant to go.

‘Reliving the past.’ Steve said, tilting his head, ‘It could be fun.’

‘Or depressing.’ Bucky offered.

Steve couldn’t help himself. He ran his fingers through Bucky’s hair again, and the man leaned into the touch like a satisfied cat.

‘I remember when we used to go out. You’d talk me up to whatever dame you picked out for me and charm your girl before half an hour was up.’

‘Think I can charm you in that time?’

‘In less.’ Steve answered honestly, and Bucky preened.

They got dressed in silence. Getting into their old garb, the kind they would’ve worn back in the day, was an odd ritual. Apparently, people went all out for these things. Girls would wear flared dresses and do their hair nice and curled, and guys would do the same, though maybe without the dresses.

‘You know,’ Bucky commented when they were standing in the living room, both dressed, ‘You may fill it out a lot better now, but I miss your scrawny little ass in these shirts.’ He flicked Steve’s collar.

The smirk he directed at Steve was disarming. It was the perfect picture of Bucky before one of their double dates. Only this time, rather than a girl he was trying to sleep with, it was Steve that was getting the sparkly eyes Bucky had mastered over the years.

‘Oh yeah?’ Steve pulled Bucky closer by the belt loops in his pants, ‘I liked you back then and now just the same.’

‘You’re a sap, Rogers.’

‘Sue me.’ Steve shrugged.

‘Hey Google,’ Bucky called out, and the small blinky thing in the corner of the room lit up. Steve had never bothered to get too up to date on all the new technologies, but Bucky was a master. It wasn’t surprising, ‘Play “Stepping out with a memory tonight”.’

‘Buck.’ Steve smiled as the song filtered through the apartment speakers. Bucky put his arms around Steve’s neck and started to sway. He looked at Steve expectantly.

‘Dance with me?’ Bucky asked quietly, and how could he say no?

The song played, and they danced in silence.

Steve had waited so long to find the right dance partner that he never considered he’d had one all along. He swayed and let out a breath when Bucky rested his head on his shoulder. There were tears in the corners of his eyes, but it was okay. It was okay.

This was what he needed all along.

Just one dance, to promise so many others.

The song ended, but Bucky stayed where he was. Steve tightened his arms around the man’s waist.

Maybe they’d give the reminiscing a miss, because in this moment, Steve had everything he needed.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> stepping out with a memory tonight- https://youtu.be/cBGo8BjCFtw

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading!!!
> 
> let me know what u think about how angry u are about the ending


End file.
